GONZALO CARRERA

Gonzalo Carrera: KEYBOARD PLAYER

Gonzalo was born in Vigo ( north west Spain). He studied Classical music for piano at the Conservatory of Vigo and continued further studies of jazz and modern harmony. He performed with Madeleine Green covering music by Pink Floyd, Genesis & jazz greats.

At the age of 19 he moved to Madrid working with the well known Spanish progressive band ‘Galadriel’. They toured Europe extensively and were signed to ‘Musea’ a French record company. In 1996 he moved to London and became a much in demand session player. He has worked/toured in the uk with many great musicians such as Wild Turkey featuring the original rhythm section of Jethro Tull with Glenn Cornick and Clive Bunker on bass and drums and vocalist Gary Pickford Hopkins (from Rick Wakeman)

Later he work with soul divas Angie Brown and Kym Mazelle, the Yes tribute band ‘Fragile’ and the Supertramp tribute band ‘Logical Tramps’ getting great reviews from Yes & Supertramp members.

Gonzalo worked Bob Dalton (from It Bites) Nick May (from The Enid) and recently recorded a new album with jazz rock band ‘Db Infusion’ featuring special guests: John Helliwell from Supertramp on sax, arranger conductor Mike Gibbs (from Peter Gabriel , Mahavishnu Orchestra), former Yes guitarist Pete Banks, John Etheridge (Soft machine), with John Hackett on flute ( Steve Hackett’s brother).

He recently released a new album with cult celtic prog band Karnataka titled "The Gathering Light” distributed by voiceprint. The album has received great reviews from the media and from Rick Wakeman recently interviewed on Plant Rock.

Gonzalo collaborated this year on an EP to raise funds for the classic rock society organizaion (a charity) based in Rotherham among whose patrons are Rick Wakeman , John Wetton, Carl Palmer. The EP features Denny Laine on guitars (Wings, Moody Blues) Gonzalo on keyboards, Heidi Jo Hines on vocals & Hugh McDowell from ELO.

Gonzalo is really thrilled to work again with his great friend Huw Lloyd-Langton who he met through Tony Ciniglio (Cafe Racers, Mark Khopfler).

More News on Gonzalo:

Gonzalo, March 2012 was invited to record at Angelic Studios, Banbury, Oxon owned by keyboardist and songwriter Toby Smith from Jamiroquai. Gonzalo recorded keys and Grand Piano on the new album of up and coming American female singer Sonya Titus. The album is being produced by Joe Barboza with contributions from Sound engineer /guitarist Mark Ralph.

End of May: Gonzalo was invited to perform with Drummer & Grammy Award winner Narada Michael Walden alongside up & coming Canadian female singer Maria Aragon. They performed at the prestigious private party organized by google called Zeitgeist at the Grove Conference centre at Hertfordshire. Other attendees at the event were Bill Clinton , Annie Lennox. Lily Cole , Jimmy Wales founder of wikipedia and Bill Paloma Faith,

Note: Maria Aragon is a 12 year old sensation who was invited recently by Lady Gaga to perform a duet in Toronto in front of 20000 people.

June: Gonzalo recorded some keyboards with Michael Oloyede at South London Studios for collaboration with the American Celtic rock band, Mimi Burns Band, featuring Mimi Burns on lead vocals , Steven Tyler on guitars, Derek Reeves from Trans-Siberian Orchestra fame - links below:

John Lingwood: Percussionist

began playing drums in the 60’s, being heavily influenced by The Beatles / Stones / Who / Cream / Hendrix, turning pro in 1968. During this time he played with a few bands, mainly in Europe, joining Steamhammer in 1972 who enjoyed some success in Germany. Through the 70’s he played with many artists and did many sessions for albums, TV and radio, also playing in West End musicals such as Jesus Christ Superstar.

From 1979 to 1988 John was a member of Manfred Mann’s Earth Band which was a very successful period for them, achieving number one albums and sell out tours in Europe. During any down-time with Manfred, John continued studio work and tours with other artists.

Through the 90’s, John was mainly playing with Roger Chapman & The Shortlist. Also during this period John was in a band with guitarist Geoff Whitehorn, working forMarshall Amplification as a demonstrator, playing at the musical tradeshows. Near the end of the 90’s John joined The Company of Snakes, a band comprising of ex-Whitesnake members Moody, Marsden and Murray and Don Airey. After a couple of albums and great reviews the band split up. After this John returned to play with Roger Chapman with whom he still plays today.

RICHARD GILLESPIE – BASS PLAYER (LLG)

I started playing bass in the mid-60s and it got to the point where occasionally I would bunk off school to go down to a recording studio on Oxford Street called 'New Breed' to see if I could get some casual recording work with some friends, guitarist Paul 'Golly' Allan (Marion & Huw’s best man at their wedding) and drummer Mick Desmarais. Then I joined a band called 'Pure Wings' with some other friends (including Rick Niles) and we were soon offered a contract with legendary manager, Lionel Conway, and a recording contract with Blue Horizon music, an offshoot of Island Records.

Lionel, who had recently also just signed Elton John, also had other acts to look after, including Cat Stevens, Spooky Tooth and Curved Air, and as it turned out, subsequently Osibisa (who Golly joined) and who were friends of ours. It was obviously a golden opportunity I could not turn down, so I left school halfway through my A levels to take it up. 'Pure Wings' was an odd band - we had no lead guitarist in an age of lead guitarists. Instead we had a violinist, who was brilliant, and a multi-instrumentalist, who was also very good, and two singers, girl and boy. Our first gig was a double header with Elton John - who was doing his first gig for Lionel. Naturally the entire audience came to hear Elton and left before we came on (it was a week night) - amazingly Elton John opened for us! But when he left, the audience left with him. But Pure Wings music was quite sweet and jazzy and we always seemed to wind up on tours with heavy metal bands, like Free, Uriah Heap and the Pink Fairies. This didn't work out so well - and anyway as a bassist I wanted to be in a heavy metal band - so I quit, selling my rights to the band's name, as it later turned out, to Paul McCartney (although he made all his arrangements through a shell company, and all I got was £25). Although Lars Juber (wings' led guitarist) started coming round to my house for jam sessions later on, I had no idea it was Paul McCartney that had bought me out till much later.)

At that stage I started a band and worked briefly with Huw on lead guitar. I had known Huw for some years and spent plenty of time jamming with him over the years, but at that stage Huw had been playing with Hawkwind and that was starting to get serious for him. My band broke up when we failed to get a recording deal. At that point I had spent a year and a half messing around and I decided it wasn't really for me. So I went back to school to finish up my A levels (I only had 9 months to pass them all though). As is typical of me, the first thing I did when I got to my new school was start another band, and who should show up on the second day of auditions but a young Tony Blair, with his guitar in a black plastic bag. By virtue of the fact that he had a van he got a job as singer and he went round telling friends it was his band and called it 'Ugly Rumours'. Neither Jeff Budge, the lead guitarist (himself over from New York but studying in London), nor I were particularly keen on the name, but we liked the young Tony well enough. He was very young and had just failed his Oxford entrance exam. He went back at the end of the year and took it again, this time passing, and that was the end of his music career. But not mine. Ugly Rumours did a few gigs around town, all arranged by Tony who had a real talent for management.

During and after my college years I formed various bands and gigged around, at one stage doing some demo tracks, and spent a lot of time jamming with Huw at Nigel Frieda's house (by coincidence Huw went to school with Nigel and his two brothers Paul & John) - Nigel Frieda went on to start Matrix Studios, essentially by moving that 'permanent' jam session into the west end and miking it up. But it wasn’t till I got to New York in 1981 that I had any real success. There I got back together with Jeff Budge and we formed a band called 'Transformers' which played around New York in 1981 and 1982 - including CBGB's and RT Firefly's. It was a great band. I have no doubt that had we been in London rather than New York we would have broken through - but at that time in New York, the music scene was going through a strange phase - ironically, they weren't into heavy metal there at all then - the band that probably would have done best there at that time was Pure Wings. Transformers' biggest claim to fame was that Mel Brooks came to see us one time - but only because his daughter was playing in the band that came on after. We put out a single ('Take a Vacation') and things were going quite well until lead singer Eamon Bowles had a huge bust-up with Jeff - and the band just exploded. Jeff was heart-broken. So was I, but my life was taking new directions.

Scroll forward to London in 2005 and Huw is living round the corner. It really was only a question of time before we got back together. We'd waited so long - or at least I had waited so long! I'm just blown away that I finally got my chance to work with Huw, and very proud of the result, although of course, it is 100% Huw (and Marion). All the same, it was my date with destiny and has been worth the wait.

Volker Von Hoff - DRUMMER

1983 -1984 : 'Yip Yip Coyote' , managed by Miles Copeland on A&M Records - 2singles and 1album, all of which charted.

1984 -1985 : 'Fools Can Dance' with Simon Gallup of the 'Cure' - no releases.

1985 -1986: I spent in Toronto and New York recording and playing live a lot as this was the only way for me to make a living over there.

1987: after my return to London I had a very bad motorcycle accident which nearly meant the end to my drumming career. After a long recovery period, I slowly started playing again, going to endless auditions and playing with a number of 'no-name-bands' hoping for another deal.

1991: I met Alan T. Wells and joined his outfit 'Conzentration' which Huw later joined, and after one of Alan's legendary fits Huw and I decided to leave and work on his own material.

After the tour with Huw late in 1994 to date I have played with a number of 'little' bands wondering whether to retire from it or not.